Category Archives: Accelerators

AlphaLab Accepting Applications!

Image via CrunchBase

I am an advisor with AlphaLab, our local Pittsburgh business accelerator, and if you have a killer startup idea and are looking for the motivation to just GTD, I would strongly encourage you to consider applying to be a part of the program.  I have participated on the selection committee for all the [...]

Zipano – Manage Your Personal Information

Zipano wants to be the central clearinghouse for control of your personal data that you share online.  “The debate about privacy is really the debate about control,” said the founder of Facebook – and Zipano wants to give that control to the user in an easy, flexible, intuitive way.
Their first product, Locaccino, is a Facebook [...]

Vivo – Live Video Broadcasting on the Web

Vivo, which started out its life as a hardware company, is next up.  They are building a platform to allow live online broadcasting.  (AlphaLab has a livestream running based on the Vivo solution – but it is closed to the public – sorry guys, BIG FAIL.  OPEN IT UP!).

The idea is not a new one [...]

NavPrescience – Personalized Navigation Solutions

Post-break, the room is full – SRO.  Next up:
NavPrescience, a CMU spinout, is looking to build a smarter GPS solution that learns from the user.  By using predictive and personalized routing, they aim to make your GPS device (which is likely to be your mobile phone in a few years) much smarter.
The company is taking [...]

LeftRight Studios – Fun Mobile Games

LeftRight Studios is all about building fun, compelling mobile games.  Geraldine Yong is presenting for the team; these are some very compelling gritty gaming guys who have just rolled out their second game for the iPhone.
Their first big hit was smackBOTS, a digital version of the plastic analog favorite, Rock’em-Sock’em Robots.

These guys have done a [...]

fooala – Giving Restaurants an Online and Mobile Storefront

fooala is building what it calls “Food 2.0″ – making it easier for restaurants to access their customers and diners to find the food they want to eat.  They want to “sell food the right way on the internet.”
The founding team out of CMU is big and successful (if not enthusiastic enough – David, light [...]

CloudFab – the Digital Fabrication Marketplace

First up is CloudFab,  a company I have been close to since its inception.  I was initially very skeptical about the prospects for the success of this company, but I am very impressed with what the entrepreneurs, Nick Pinkston and Steve Klabnik, have been able to build.
The idea is to democratize “distributed desktop manufacturing” by [...]

Reporting Live from AlphaLab Demo Day!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 – Demo Day for the 3rd AlphaLab class!  It looks like a great lineup of startups, perhaps the best yet, and they are more prepared and drilled than any other class to come out of here.  I am looking forward to seeing how they do and giving  some candid feedback on [...]

AlphaLab Applications

I have written a bit before about business accelerators, and I sit on the board of a local accelerator here in Pittsburgh called AlphaLab.  There is a pretty significant national trend afoot right now for every town to put up their own accelerator, and you are seeing them pop up everywhere.  I think this is [...]

Morbidly Obese Markets

Last week, I wrote about my experiences with two demo days at business accelerators:  LaunchBox Digital in Washington, DC and TechStars in Boulder, CO.  I tried to get an invitation to YCombinator in Boston as well, but somehow it slipped through the cracks.
One of the most impressive things I saw at both sites was “The [...]